Company Supplied Websites don’t let you Differentiate

Frank, I am in (company name removed) and they give us several websites to use for our marketing. Should I use these sites or should I get my own?

With all those websites, it’s tempting to think that you have all the websites you’ll ever need for your home based business. But even though these may be perfectly good websites, they have one big problem.

The problem? They’re replicated websites. They’re all the same. There are thousands of reps out there in your company; all with the exact same websites. The only difference are the names on the website – that’s it.

There’s a saying in business circles that directly applies here: ‘Differentiate or Die’. I think that comes from a book with that title which by the way, is well worth reading (it should be in your local library system). Basically it means that if you can’t differentiate yourself in your business, then your business will die. You must do at least something different in a different manner than everyone else in order to attract clients, customers, downline, etc.

The point here is not to say the company supplied websites are useless; they are very useful. But you will have a difficult time differentiating with them. Think of them more as ‘indirect’ marketing tools.

While this concept may sound intimidating, it’s really not. You can relax — just be yourself and you’ve already differentiated. But in terms of differentiating yourself on the web, the best way to accomplish that is with your own website.

But your company websites won’t do the job by themselves. They’re great for sending leads to in order to view presentations, get information, download online brochures and such. But to truly differentiate yourself, you’ll want your own website or you will need to use something else outside those company websites.